Football is the kind of game where you have to really segregate kids from the general population and kind of colonize their minds. It's more intense and demands more than other sports. And this is why the folks who are involved (as players, coaches, boosters, fans) are so much more devoted to it. It's really a cult, when you think about it.
Steve AlmondA good teacher, after all, wields the authority of a parent with none of the psychological baggage. The best of them are semi-mysterious figures whose wisdom seems boundless and whose approval helps us discover who we are.
Steve AlmondI have a hard time defending the production of candy, given that it is basically crack for children and makes them dependent in unwholesome ways.
Steve AlmondWe are all, in the private kingdom of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend. Someone who isnโt embarrassed by our emotions, or her own, who recognizes that life is short and all that we have to offer, in the end, is love.
Steve AlmondI really believe that art has to play a role in changing the moral direction. Mean, selfish people are in charge of the government and we're letting them make us into a much meaner culture. It reminds me of McCarthyism, to be honest, and to the early stages of fascism. There are people out there cheering for war, treating those deaths like some kind of athletic event. How sick do we have to be that this is not only acceptable, but virtually unchallenged by other politicians or clergy or anyone? And it's artists who have to stand up and be counted. Right now.
Steve AlmondBut something occurred to me as I sped through that dirty shroud of fog, something Vonnegut has been trying to explain to the rest of us for most of his life. And that is this: Despair is a form of hope. It is an acknowledgment of the distance between ourselves and our appointed happiness. At certain moments, it is reason enough to live.
Steve Almond